Humpback whale body condition and predator-prey interactions

Baleen whales are important consumers in coastal marine ecosystems that can serve as effective sentinel species due to their large body size and high energetic requirements. As capital breeders, baleen whales undergo large changes in body condition seasonally, accumulating energy reserves during the summer foraging months and relying on these energy stores during the winter. Studying body condition can provide information on population health and resource availability, particularly when paired with research on prey abundance, distribution and/ or species composition.

We are using Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) or drones to obtain morphometric measurements of individual humpback whales, which we integrate with a 3D model to estimate total body volume of individual whales as a metric of body condition, and aerial imagery of predator-prey interactions. Field work for this research in the New York Bight is part of a long-term monitoring project, and we are also collaborating with other research teams to conduct comparisons of body condition of humpback whales at different foraging areas in the North Atlantic.

Our research further assesses how humpback whale body condition and foraging energetics relate to the abundance and distribution of their prey, both at fine scales (e.g., using aerial imagery from UAS) and at large scales (e.g., comparisons of prey abundance and species composition throughout the Northeast US).